Claude-Joseph Désiré Charnay was a French traveller and archaeologist notable both for his explorations of Mexico and Central America, and for the pioneering use of photography to document his discoveries. He was born in Fleurie, and studied at the Lycée Charlemagne. In 1850, he became a teacher in New Orleans, Louisiana, a partly French-speaking community, and there became acquainted with John Lloyd Stephens's books of travel in Yucatan. He travelled in Mexico, by commission from the French ministry of education, during 1857–1861; in Madagascar during 1863; back to Mexico in 1864, with the French troops of Emperor Maximilian, in South America, pa...
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